Abstract

Consider this paradox: substantial political change including increasing political participation in Southeast Asia in the last decade has often been accompanied by a narrowing of the channels for political contestation. Neither the fact, nor the complexity, of political change in Southeast Asia or elsewhere has totally eluded theorists. Indeed, there is now greater recognition that this political change may be either heading in directions other than liberal democracy, or is manifesting in new variants of liberal democracy. The proliferation of so-called hybrid regime theory and the burgeoning literature on the quality of democracy reflects this. Such work has highlighted how problematic many of the ‘Third Wave’ transitions to democracy have proved to be. In the process, political institutions have been subjected to unprecedented detailed scrutiny and analysis by transition theorists in the attempt to characterise diverse political regimes.